Not At Oil What He Had In Mind
by Kathy Rose
Summary: Malcolm and Trip put their heads together to make something.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: This started out as a Drown Malcolm story for November but took a wrong turn to a Trip-and-Malcolm misadventure. References to Vox Sola, The Catwalk, and Singularity. Also, the science behind Trip and Malcolm's project is totally made up and probably wrong. Don't try it at home.

BETA'd by Artisticmom2 (I did a little messing with the story after AM's beta, though; any mistakes are mine.)

* * *

Malcolm put a final check mark on the manifest as the sparkle of the transporter beam faded away. All the supplies were on board. The only thing left to do was to stow everything. To that end, some of the crew had formed a line to pass items by hand from the transporter alcove into the corridor, much like a bucket brigade at a fire. The items were then loaded onto carts or dollies, and dispersed throughout the ship.

The crewmen were clearing out when Trip pushed an empty hand cart into the alcove. He looked at the last of the items sitting on the transporter platform before turning an inquiring gaze on Malcolm.

"Vegetable oil," Malcolm told him. He checked the manifest. "These barrels need to go to the storage pantry off the galley."

"Four of 'em?" Trip said, eyeing the fifty-gallon drums. "I had no idea Chef did so much frying."

Malcolm clicked off the data PADD holding the manifest. "There's that catfish someone likes to have pan fried."

Trip snorted. "I'm lucky if Chef fixes catfish more than once every two months. He says it stinks up his galley, no matter how much I tweak the air recyclers in there." He moved the cart as close to the transporter platform as possible. The bed of the cart was more than a step lower than the raised platform. "Give me a hand, would ya?"

Malcolm pocketed the PADD as he went to help. He and Trip tilted one of the barrels, rolling it on its edge and easing it off the platform down onto the cart. As they moved the second one, however, some of Trip's toes were pinched when the edge of the barrel rolled across the tip of his boot.

"Damn it!" Trip cried, hopping on his other foot. "There's got to be a better way to do this."

Malcolm waited until Trip finished dancing around before saying, "I don't think there is any other way to do this, short of dropping them off the platform and rolling them down the corridor."

Trip smiled at the image that presented. "Chef would probably have a fit if he caught us doing that."

"I would have a fit if I caught us doing that," Malcolm said. "Can you imagine the mess if one of these came open?"

They moved the next barrel onto the cart with no more injured toes, but Trip put a hand to the small of his back. "Maybe we could rig up something to make this easier."

"We only have one more to go," Malcolm said.

"I'm talking about for the next time we take on supplies," Trip clarified. He gestured at the last barrel where it sat on the platform. "If there was some way to make that lighter, short of transferring the oil into smaller containers..." He shot a rueful glance at Malcolm. "Too bad we can't adjust the grav plating along a path to the galley."

The tactical officer shook his head. "We both know that system isn't designed to do that. It's either on or it's off in each section of the ship. What we need is some kind of device that nullifies gravity around what has to be moved."

"Could an EM barrier be adapted to do that?" Trip wondered out loud, referring to something Malcolm had developed to keep an alien entity confined in one of the cargo bays.

Malcolm's eyes took on a faraway look. "Not by itself. The electromagnetic field would prevent us from being able to reach in and grab whatever it's enclosing." His eyes snapped back into focus. "Besides, EM field generators can't be moved without disrupting the field. We want something portable."

After moving the last barrel onto the cart, Trip pushed the cart out of the alcove. Malcolm pulled the PADD out of his pocket and began entering calculations as he trailed Trip toward the mess hall. The mention of the EM field had given him an idea.

"If we could make a device with a grasping arm..." Malcolm punched in some design specs. "...rigged to an EM generator...working in concert with a gravity-nullifying system..."

"...which we'll have to invent," Trip said as he guided the cart to the galley's entrance next to the mess hall. There wasn't a raised threshold, so he was able to push the cart through the doorway directly into the galley. As he steered the cart toward the pantry, he said, "It took environmental design engineers years to come up with artificial gravity. I would never have imagined we would want to circumvent it."

"I can't imagine what it would be like to work in zero g for any length of time," Malcolm said. At the thought of floating free for months on end, his stomach lurched. "Or maybe I can."

"How about cannibalizing a maglock for the part that holds onto whatever we want to move?" Trip suggested.

Malcolm nodded, and then jerked his head toward the barrels on the cart, which Trip had parked just inside the pantry door. "We can try whatever we come up with on them."

* * *

The two officers returned to the pantry a couple of days later to test their invention. They had constructed a rectangular box the size of a small suitcase to hold the circuitry and a battery. On one side of the box was a metal arm about a meter long, at the end of which was a re-purposed maglock. On the other side was a handle, originally a ladder rung like those used to climb between decks. An on-off switch was located next to the handle. The configuration reminded Malcolm of the old-fashioned leaf blower his father used to clear the walk at home. Indeed, if this thing worked, the barrels would seem as light as air-blown leaves.

"Not bad for two days' work in our off-duty time," Malcolm said.

"Once we realized we only had to block the effect of the grav plating, not generate a zero-g space," Trip said, "it was a piece of cake to put it together."

"This could have defense applications," Malcolm said. "If we can integrate it into the ship's systems, we can block gravity in areas where intruders have boarded." He smirked. "Can you picture a bunch of Klingons stalking down the corridor to engineering, intent on taking control of the ship, and all of a sudden the gravity cuts out on them?"

Trip gave him a wry look. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Malcolm. We have to see if it works first."

They lifted the device so that the maglock was against the side of one of the barrels of vegetable oil. It clamped on with a reassuring clunk. But when they let go, the arm started to bend under the weight of the circuitry box. They caught it before the arm could snap.

"We need to brace the arm," Trip said. He disengaged the maglock so they could lower the device to the floor. "I've got some material in engineering that might serve to shore it up. I'll be right back."

As Trip left, Malcolm surveyed their creation with a critical eye. He moved the maglock down the arm closer to the circuitry box. When he lifted it, it seemed more well balanced. One person alone ought to be able to handle the anti-grav device.

_Anti-grav_, he thought with a smile. _What a great name!_

His smile faded. It wouldn't matter what they called it if it didn't work.

He glanced toward the pantry door. Wouldn't Trip be surprised to come back and see that he had already moved some of the barrels? First, though, he had to fix that arm.

Malcolm found a laser cutter in the toolbox Trip had brought along. He used it to lop off the extraneous length of the arm. The piece fell to the deck with a loud clang. He put the cutter on a nearby shelf in case he needed it again, and then looked around. With all the supplies they had taken on, the pantry was packed from floor to ceiling, but he saw a spot against one of the bulkheads where all the barrels would fit if he stacked them two high. A wheeled utility cart with tubs of lettuce and other fresh vegetables, probably for the evening meal, was in the way. He nudged it to one side to clear a path.

He attached the anti-grav's maglock to the barrel of oil. The maglock clamped on with no problem. When he cautiously released his hold on the device, the shortened arm showed no sign of bending. He pushed the switch to turn on the anti-grav mechanism. There was a low hum, followed by a shimmer as an EM field sprung out to surround the barrel. So far, so good. He took a deep breath, grasped the anti-grav's handle tightly with both hands, and lifted.

The barrel shot into the air, almost pulling him off the deck with it. Only the fact that he hadn't let go of the anti-grav's handle kept the barrel from careening into the overhead bulkhead.

Malcolm knew exactly what had happened. He had used too much force, subconsciously expecting the barrel to feel as if it weighed as much as it would in normal gravity. It was a cadet's error, one he should have anticipated after his training in Starfleet's EV zero-g simulator. Still, despite the discomfort the memory of the "Vomitorium" evoked, he was grinning from ear to ear as he carefully pulled the anti-grav and its load down. It worked! The only difficulty was its size, which made it awkward to maneuver in the crowded storage area. But even that wasn't much of a problem because the EM field-encased barrel tended to bounce off whatever it brushed against, much like a balloon would bounce off a wall.

He put the barrel down next to the bulkhead between shelving units holding sacks of flour and jugs of vinegar. A flick of the switch shut off the anti-grav. It was practically unheard of for a prototype to work so well the first time it was tested. He almost let out a whoop of triumph, but he managed to restrain himself.

He set about moving the other barrels off the cart. The second one went on the deck next to the first. The third was a little trickier because it had to be put on top of one of the others, but he managed it. As he went back for the last barrel, he looked toward the pantry door. Still no sign of Trip. He ought to wait until the chief engineer came back so that the other man could see the anti-grav in operation, but he was having too much fun to wait.

Chef had already tapped into this barrel, Malcolm saw. It had a manual pump with a hose screwed into its top bung hole. That would be difficult to get to if the barrel was on the second tier. Unfortunately, there was no other place for it in the crowded pantry. He mentally shrugged as he turned on the anti-grav. Chef would just have to use a step stool to reach it.

After guiding the barrel over to the others, he lifted it to stack it, but one of his elbows bumped against a shelf, causing a dozen or so jugs of vinegar stored there to rock. He took a step back, but his foot came down on the piece of metal he had cut from the anti-grav's arm. His ankle twisting under him, he barely managed to keep his balance as, the barrel wobbling, the anti-grav bucked in his hands.

"Bloody hell!" he muttered as he got the barrel and the anti-grav under control.

He backed up to go at it from a better angle. Since he couldn't see the floor as he pushed the anti-grav's load ahead of him, he inched along, sliding his feet on the deck so as not to step on anything else that might trip him up. He reached the spot without further incident, and carefully raised the anti-grav above the level of his head so that the barrel could be placed on the second level.

That's when the battery in the anti-grav died. The EM field, with only a shimmering ripple to give warning, cut out, as did the gravity-negating effect. The barrel instantaneously regained its weight; there was no way Malcolm could hold it up. His arm was clipped by the anti-grav's handle on its way down, knocking him to his knees. The barrel, still in the maglock's grip, caught the edge of one of the shelving units, and the same jugs of vinegar that had been sloshing around a few moments earlier tipped over and rolled off the shelf. The barrel wrenched loose from the maglock and hit him in the chest, slamming him onto his back. Luckily, the barrel rolled away from him instead of over him.

Malcolm wasn't aware that the barrel's contents were spilling until he was sprayed with vegetable oil streaming from the hose. He was sliding about on the oil-slick deck, trying to get to his feet, when his nostrils pinched at a sharp acidic odor. Some of the vinegar jugs had burst open when they had hit the floor. He could see the sheen of oil interspersed with pools of vinegar spreading across the pantry floor.

"Bloody-" One of his flailing hands smacked a tub of vegetables on the utility cart. Leaves of lettuce catapulted into the air, only to fall back down and stick to the mess which, since he had been rolling around in it, included him. "-hell!"

Malcolm tried to get up once more but slipped again, banging into the same shelving he had bumped before. Several more jugs of vinegar came crashing down. So did the laser cutter, which activated when it landed on its power button. To his astonishment, the beam stayed on. A desperate evasive move saved his leg and another part of his anatomy of which he was fond. The only thing he could figure, as he scuttled crab-like out of the way, was that oil or vinegar had fouled the trigger mechanism, preventing the cutter's fail-safe from shutting off the laser.

He fought down bile as the stench of burnt cooking oil overrode the acidic tang of vinegar. At least the laser cutter had stopped bouncing around. The beam was now aimed away from him and, having bored through fallen sacks of flour as well as the toppled barrel, was making an incision in the insulated door of the walk-in cooler. On his rump, he slid over to the cutter, grabbed it, and yanked the power cell out. The beam immediately ceased. He tossed the cutter in one direction and the power cell in the other.

He leaned back against the empty shelving that had held the vinegar to catch his breath. The soft burble of the last of the oil draining from the barrel seemed almost restful after all the racket. He was still sitting there on the deck, plucking oil-and-vinegar drenched lettuce leaves from his uniform, when the sound of footsteps came from outside the pantry.

"Hey, Malcolm! It might be a...good idea...if we..." Trip's voice wound down as he stepped into the pantry. He took in the empty hand cart, the three barrels against the bulkhead and the fourth on its side, the damaged vinegar jugs and flour sacks on the deck, the wisp of smoke rising from a deep scar in the cooler's door, and finally, the ship's tactical officer doing what appeared to be an impression of a green salad with vinaigrette dressing. "What the hell happened in here?" he asked.

Malcolm smiled weakly. He patted the anti-grav, which miraculously had ended up in one piece next to him. "It works."

Trip's eyebrows rose in disbelief as his gaze returned to the carnage in the pantry.

"When the battery is at full power," Malcolm amended.

"Ah." Trip picked his way over to the fallen officer, placing his feet carefully on the slick deck. "Are you all right?"

"Just a few bruises, the worst of which is to my ego," Malcolm responded.

He took the hand that Trip offered and pulled himself up. He tried to find a dry spot on his uniform to wipe his hands but couldn't. In looking down at himself, he saw that his uniform was probably beyond saving. Even if the ship's laundry could get all the oil and vinegar out of it, one pant leg had been slit from ankle to mid-thigh by the laser cutter. He picked one last piece of lettuce from his uniform and tossed it aside.

Trip squatted next to their invention. "I see you made a modification," he said, looking at the shortened arm. He turned his gaze up to Malcolm. "But I was going to tell you that I think we need to use two of these units in tandem, one on either side of what is being moved."

Malcolm's embarrassment was forgotten as he considered Trip's suggestion. "Two would provide more stability," he mused with a nod. "If one has a malfunction, the other would still be working."

Trip stood and, with a sweep of his hand to indicate the mess, said, "Chef isn't going to be happy to see this."

Malcolm groaned. "You help me clean it up, and maybe he won't be any the wiser."

"He's gonna want to know what happened to one of his barrels of vegetable oil."

"Tell him you took it to fry your own catfish," Malcolm suggested. He sighed as he began picking up oil-soaked lettuce leaves and putting them back in the tub. "After we're done here, we can make a second anti-grav and see how it works with the first one."

"Anti-grav, huh?" Trip asked. "How'd you come up with that name?"

"It's descriptive of its purpose," Malcolm explained.

"Oh, I don't know. It could be catchier." Trip's eyes twinkled as he drawled, "Seeing what you unleashed in here, 'Reed Wrecker' would be even more descriptive, don't ya think?"

Trip barely managed to dodge the wadded-up handful of soggy lettuce that Malcolm threw at him.


End file.
